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Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:59:05 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3Litquake LitCrawl in the Missionhttp://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/14/litquake-litcrawl-in-the-mission/
http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/14/litquake-litcrawl-in-the-mission/#commentsSat, 14 Oct 2006 12:58:34 +0000http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/14/litquake-litcrawl-in-the-mission/If you haven’t made it yet this year to Litquake, San Francisco’s week-long celebration of literature featuring readings and panels by hundreds of local authors, there’s still time to make it to the be-all, end-all event, the infamous LitCrawl in the Mission. It happens tonight, at bars and other venues all up and down Valencia Street, and it involves two of my most favorite things–good drinks and hot writers. Okay, not all of the writers are hot, but at least they all have something to say.

I’d wander on over to see if there’s any action at the The Make-Out Room (21 and over; 3225 22nd St.), where “The Brat Pack: Local Fiction From MacAdam/Cage” may not read about sex (or they might — these people are dirty) but are certainly writers known to put out when the mood strikes.

If you’re all spoken-worded out, Tom Kealey and SF Chron Books Editor Oscar Villalon will be thumbwrestling at 826 Valencia at 7:15.

]]>http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/14/litquake-litcrawl-in-the-mission/feed/1Oscar’s Urban Education at Hardly Strictly Bluegrasshttp://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/08/oscars-urban-education-at-hardly-strictly-bluegrass/
http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/08/oscars-urban-education-at-hardly-strictly-bluegrass/#commentsSun, 08 Oct 2006 23:16:46 +0000http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/08/oscars-urban-education-at-hardly-strictly-bluegrass/For the best annual family-friendly event in San Francisco, I’ll put my money on Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.This year–yesterday and today– was the sixth in what I hope will be a longstanding venture. What makes this event so swank? It’s in Golden Gate Park; it’s free; the music is swell; the food ranges from corndogs to jambalaya; and the people-watching is hard to beat. We missed out on Billy Bragg, Gillian Welch, and Kelly Willis yesterday, but made it to T-Bone Burnett & Iris Dement today.
If there’s anything our toddler Oscar loves more than music, it’s a party, and HSBG is one big music party. Oscar got his groove on while chowing down on Cheerios and raisins, and because this is San Francisco where, on a good day, the love doesn’t stop with blood relations, the woman sitting on the green green grass in front of us swept in for the rescue when Oscar tried to ingest a few raisins that had fallen into the dirt. She held out her hand for him to spit the chewed riasins into her palm, which he did happily. There comes a point early on in motherhood when asking your kid to spit crap into your palm is second nature, but I’ve yet to reach that state of maternal nirvana whereby I extend the courtesy to other people’s children.

The British guy behind us was talking about the first outdoor concert he ever attended in SF, back in 1969. Meanwhile, some folks were lighting up the happy stuff a few feet away, and we were close enough to pretend we were vicariously stoned, although, of course, it never really happens that way.

When Oscar started playing race-around-the-port-a-potty, we had to leave. Walking home, he got to see a really big dog, pet a Park Police horse, and watch a girl in green rubber boots make out with a boy in a sari behind the trees by Spreckels Lake. All in all, a good day in Golden Gate Park.

HSBG is the brainchild of bluegrass-lovin’ financier Warren Hellman, whose pockets run deep for this show. Did you go? Who did you see? What’d I miss?

]]>http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/08/oscars-urban-education-at-hardly-strictly-bluegrass/feed/1Blue Angels and the Bad Timing Awardhttp://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/05/blue-angels-and-the-bad-timing-award/
http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/05/blue-angels-and-the-bad-timing-award/#commentsThu, 05 Oct 2006 17:21:19 +0000http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/05/blue-angels-and-the-bad-timing-award/When I was a kid, my mother occasionally took us to some military base in Alabama to watch the Blue Angels perform. It was always exciting, because, well, there wasn’t a whole lot to do in Mobile, Alabama. But now I’m all grown up, not to mention there’s a war on, and I feel less enthusiastic about this noisy display of military prowess. I’m using a friend’s house on Alamo Square today–book deadline looms, sitter is at my house with the youngun–and I’d just settled in with a cup of coffee and my laptop on their comfy leather sofa, happy to hear the rain on the windows, watching the dog-walkers get wet in the park–when something seemed to rip a hole in the sky. Having grown up in the Bible Belt, I was bred on the Apocolypse. These planes make a noise akin to something the fire-and-brimstone preachers of my youth promised on the day of reckoning. Which is to say the Blue Angels are unpleasant. Anachronistic. Fun for toddlers, I suppose, but not exactly my thing. Sorry, mama, but it’s true.
]]>http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/10/05/blue-angels-and-the-bad-timing-award/feed/10Farm Handshttp://sf.metblogs.com/2006/09/05/farm-hands/
http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/09/05/farm-hands/#commentsTue, 05 Sep 2006 16:45:15 +0000http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/09/05/farm-hands/We spent Labor Day weekend at Emandal farm near Willits, about a four-hour drive from San Francisco. This is a fabulous three-day trip for families in the Bay Area. It’s a working farm, where the kids get to pet the animals, watch during feeding time, help gather eggs, and even milk a cow. Each evening there’s a campfire. Our first night was perfect–starry night and campfire songs. The food is amazing, most of it grown right there on the farm, suited for discerning Bay Area taste buds. On Saturday, for example, we had burgers made with fresh-baked rolls, huge heirloom tomatoes, and a homemade sauce. The sweet little delicious beef patties were the sideliner, the tomatoes being the real star. On Firday night, there was homemade pizza, with fresh ice cream and berry pie for dessert.
The farm is on the Eel River, and there are two great swimming holes just a short hike down from the cabins. The cabins are basic but adorable–down comforters, cold-water sinks, high ceilings, screen windows. We never had to wait for the shared restrooms or showers, which are very clean and just a few paces from the cabins.

Emandal is open only a certain weekends, and you can stay from three to four nights. A three-night stay for me, my husband, and our toddler, including all food (you bring your own alcoholic beverages) was about $800. The place is lovingly run by Tam, who used to have a children’s summer camp there but now only opens the place as a “family camp.” A great trip for families!

]]>http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/09/05/farm-hands/feed/5Bay Crossinghttp://sf.metblogs.com/2006/08/28/bay-crossing/
http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/08/28/bay-crossing/#commentsMon, 28 Aug 2006 15:15:07 +0000http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/08/28/bay-crossing/Here’s a truly bizarre little film about crossing San Francisco Bay in a homemade rowboat. Some guy named Steve MacDonald emailed me to let me know about the film, which he put up on You Tube. The film consists of footage of MacDonald rowing across the Bay, accompanied by audio of “recorded telephone conversations between Steve and various representatives of local agencies (Coast Guard, Parks and Recreation, etc.).”
“The visual quality of the film, washed out super8 footage which simply presents us with the repetitive act of rowing the boat, is contrasted with the immediacy and specifics of the telephone dialogue. This fleeting sense of meaning, and misunderstanding, strikes a chord familiar in Steve’s work: funny, yes, but not without a touch of longing and melancholy.”

Okay, sure. But the film really is worth a watch. Steve basically calls folks up and says, “Hey, I’m going to row across the Bay in my homemade rowboat. Do you have any advice?” The responses range from laughter, to well-wishes, to slightly angry skepticism. My favorite moment is when Steve asks a woman on the other end of the line, “What happens if I sink?”

No one really seems to have any answers, which is perhaps the point.

]]>http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/08/28/bay-crossing/feed/2Carole & Mitzi go Fruit of the Loom on Varnishhttp://sf.metblogs.com/2006/08/26/carole-mitzi-go-fruit-of-the-loom-on-varnish/
http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/08/26/carole-mitzi-go-fruit-of-the-loom-on-varnish/#commentsSat, 26 Aug 2006 18:39:55 +0000http://sf.metblogs.com/2006/08/26/carole-mitzi-go-fruit-of-the-loom-on-varnish/I’m going to fess up here, just put it on the line. I own a TV. This is not a popular statement to make in San Francisco, particularly if you’re an author. Given that I’m an author who also teaches in an MFA Program in creative writing, admitting to owning and watching a television is akin to admitting to being a Republican (I’m not). It gets worse. I have TIVO. And worse! I don’t just use it to record Frontline. No, I tape the worst of the worst–or perhaps I should say the best of the worst–namely, Project Runway and Kathy Griffin’s Life on the D List.

I was reminded of Griffin’s show at a reading I participated in Thursday night at Varnish Fine Art Gallery. The reading was put on by San Francisco literary A-lister Michelle Tea (author, most recently, of Rose of No Man’s Land), but it had its D-list moments. Case in point: when I read my bit about sex and evangelism in Alabama in the early eighties (inappropriately titled “Putting Out: How You and All Your Friends Came to Know Jesus”), it was to a straight-faced audience. I’m talking silence. No laugh box. Which was painful. I mean, about three paragraphs into the essay I realized this wasn’t my crowd, or this wasn’t the right kind of humor for this crowd, and I was just going to have to suffer through it. So then I just started reading really, really fast so I could sit down and have a glass of wine, and it was a nice big glass, because fellow MacAdam/Cage author Craig Clevenger (The Contortionist’s Handbook, Dermaphoria), was working the bar, and he can tell when a girl needs a drink.

Next up was Chelsea Starr, who a)has a much better name than me and b)was sassily and sexily dressed in 80s finery, clearly having missed out on the actual eighties, on account of her youthfulness, and c)read a piece about having a crush on her hot high school drama teacher, which went over brilliantly. My high school drama teacher was named Mrs. Estes. She wasn’t really hot, but she kinda passed for hot in Mobile, Alabama, circa 1987.

Then Kaui Hart Hemmings (House of Thieves), whose kid is about the same age as mine, read a really funny bit about parenting in San Francisco, and after that Beth Lisick and Tara Jepsen made a guest appearance as Carole & Mitzi, stars of the beloved short indie film Diving for Pearls. This was when things got creatively D-list–although, of course, in a good way–because Carole & Mitzi were wearing these fruit costumes–think Fruit of the Loom, but more low budget–walking ads for The Fruit Guys. Which made me think that maybe I should start wearing costumes to my readings to raise a little cash, you know, to pay the babysitter, so I can do more readings. Because one of these days, I’m going to make somebody laugh with highly inappropriate tales of sex and evangelism– I just know it.